Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “How to Stay Alive” by Chad Norman.

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How to Stay Alive

By Chad Norman

For Anna Jean Mallinson

For myself

and perhaps

for some others

it is all about

watching, no, admiring

the crystalline examples

of intelligence found

at times in the shade

on a far-too-hot afternoon,

those winged ones I share

this staying-alive thing with

flutter about

seeking the perfect branch,

no, stone, or blade of grass,

to land on, knowing then

one spot, no, choice,

is to be the coolest.

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Copyright © Chad Norman

First appeared in Poetry Pause on October 21, 2020

Chad Norman lives and writes in Truro, Nova Scotia. In 1992 he was awarded the Gwendolyn MacEwen Memorial Award For Poetry, the judges were Margaret Atwood, Barry Callaghan, and Al Purdy. His poems appear in journals, magazines, anthologies around the world. His most recent book, A Matter Of Inclusion is out now, with a new collection, Parental Forest, scheduled for Spring 2024.

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